them. and if they don't believe that, they should ask jim sinegal, who runs costco or some of these other more responsible companies, and they would hear the answer. >> jonathan alter, great to have you with us tonight. >> thanks, ed. >> i'm anxious to see your next book. i know you're working hard on it. we'll talk about it again. that's "the ed show." i'm ed schultz. the the "rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> good eveningish ed. thank you, my friend. >> you bet. >> thanks now at home for staying with us for this hour. the 1992 presidential election. that was the election that cut short poppy bush's time in office, right? he was only a one-term president because he lost in 1992. democrats like to remember 1992 as a triumphant year for the democratic party because there was this young arkansas democratic governor bill clinton unseating an incumbent republican president. the uncomfortable part of that memory for democrats is that even though bill clinton did beat president bush in 1992 he did so with only 43% of the vote. bill clinton got 43% of the vote that year.

president bush got 37% of the vote. and even though it is always a bad idea to do math on television, this one isn't that hard. if you add up 43 and 37 you do not get anywhere near 100% of the vote. what happened to the rest of the vote? the wacky thing about the 1992 election in terms of thinking about american binary red versus blue party politics is that another guy who ran that year, a third person, got almost 20% of the vote. it was ross perot, right? giant sucking sound. ross perot got a very large proportion of the vote for a third-party candidate. nearly 20%. and who knows how the votes would have been divided between bill clinton and george h.w. bush had ross perot not been in there that year. but one thing that's often forgotten about the 1992 race was that ross perot was not the only third-party candidate who ran that year. there was a whole slate of other third-party candidates nominated that year who did not make as big a splash as mr. sucking

sound did. they did as well as third-party candidates usually do, which is not that well at all. but one of that long list of candidates who ran on something called the populist party ticket, one of those candidates ended up in the course of that campaign that year, he ended up having a starring role in a really serious news event that transfixed the country and had nothing at all to do with presidential politics. his name was bo gritz. he was a vietnam veteran. he got 0.1% of the popular vote ultimately. but in august 1992, about 2 1/2 months before the presidential election, he ended up playing the mediator role, sort of the negotiator's role, in ending an 11-day violent fatal armed standoff at the top of a mountain in northern idaho about 30 miles from the canadian border. >> it ended without gunfire, unlike the way it began. randy weaver, his three children, and the man the

government reluctantly accepted as its negotiator walked out of a mountaintop cabin late this afternoon hand in hand. >> he didn't come out. we went in. and we hugged each other. and we kissed the girls and hugged them. and it's a very emotional thing. >> it was 11 days ago when the siege in northern i'd began. weaver, his wife, three kids, and a friend were found hiding in a remote cabin not far from the canadian border. weaver was wanted on charges of selling sawed-off shotguns. there was a shootout, and a federal marshal was killed. the next day weaver's wife was killed. a son killed. and a friend wounded. northern idaho is a hotbed for anti-government sentiment. and as the siege dragged on a vigil of angry supporters watched the authorities' every move. >> so bo gritz, presidential candidate that year, ended up playing this key role in ending this horrible standoff. but the standoff, it lasted for 11 days, and it did become a

cause celebre for a very angry portion of the very far right anti-government fringe in this country. that was ruby ridge. less than a year later, about six months later, the siege started at waco in central texas. a cult leader and dozens of his followers were living in a compound that they had built on a rural piece of land just outside of waco. members of the cult, among other crimes, were suspected of possessing illegal weapons. an attempt to serve a search warrant on the compound ended in a huge firefight in which four federal agents and several members of the cult were killed. then that was followed by another long and ultimately very bloody standoff between law enforcement and this very well-armed group of people. it was a 50-day standoff in waco that ended in a massive fire and many, many fatalities. >> good evening. it appears tonight that david koresh, who believed that he was the son of god, perished today in a setting that closely resembled hell. and apparently, he took more than 85 of his followers with him, including it's estimated 17 children.

>> what happened at waco was an absolute nightmare. but on parts of the very far right, on the anti-government far right fringe, it was seen not just as a nightmare but as a conspiracy, as a government conspiracy, as something that was ginned up and in fact faked by the government to create a big enough, scary enough situation that it would justify taking away everyone's guns. a freshman republican congressman from texas at the time, a congressman named steve stockman, even wrote in an article in "guns & ammo" magazine that waco was a government execution. he said, "waco was supposed to be a way for the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms and the clinton administration to prove the need for a ban on so-called assault weapons." this was a member of congress arguing that the deaths at waco were premeditated by the government as a way to persuade the rest of the country to support gun control. he was saying the government made this up, they did this on purpose, they ginned this up for political reasons, it was planned.

ruby ridge had been a cause celebre for folks like that already that year. waco was a further cause celebre for the same group of people. and on the anniversary of waco, on the two-year anniversary of waco, on april 19th, 1995, a militia member named timothy mcveigh cited ruby ridge and waco as his inspiration for bombing the federal building in oklahoma city. timothy mcveigh was trying to kill as many federal employees as possible when he bombed that building. he specifically chose the murrah building in part because it had an atf office in it and that to him was an ideal target for americans to kill. after the oklahoma city bombing law enforcement officials later went back and they found this picture of timothy mcveigh at waco two years earlier. he had gone to waco during the siege, and waco was part of why he said he did what he did on the anniversary of that siege two years later in 1995. on the day of the bombing in oklahoma city, that same texas congressman, steve stockman, who

had said that waco was a conspiracy by the government ginned up for gun control purposes, that same congressman ended up back in the middle of the oklahoma city story as well. this is from nbc "nightly news" just a few days after the oklahoma bombing. >> and a freshman texas congressman is at the center of another mystery. last week the office of republican steve stockman received a fax with a cryptic message about a building in oklahoma with nine floors, a bomb threat. it was timed and dated almost precisely at the time the bomb went off. today stockman gave his side of the story. >> they retrieved the fax, and i was made aware of it. i immediately instructed my staff to turn it over to the fbi, and my office did so within minutes. >> stockman also acknowledged today that a member of his staff sent that fax on to the national rifle association. >> his office sent it to the nra? then less than a month after the oklahoma city bombing, on a day

that had been proclaimed a national day of mourning for police killed in the line of duty, less than a month after the oklahoma city bombing, the nra took out a national newspaper ad defending a fund-raising letter that they had just sent which called federal law enforcement personnel jackbooted thugs. this is less than a month after the oklahoma city bombing. president george h.w. bush resigned his life membership in the nra in protest. ultimately, even after they first defended it, the nra was forced to apologize for the "jackbooted thugs" thing. and ultimately, old steve stockman did get voted out of office in texas in 1996. he'd only served one term in the house. but you know what happened to steve stockman in the long run? in this past election in 2012, the one we just had, steve stockman got voted back into office. texas decided to send him back. and then yeah, he was the guy who even before president obama said what he wanted to do on gun reform this week, steve stockman was the member of congress who was already out calling for

president obama's impeachment, before president obama had even suggested anything. steve stockman wanted to impeach him as a gun grabber. that, incidentally, is how he won his race to go back to congress this past year, too. he called his republican opponent in the primary a gun grabber. everybody's a gun grabber. president obama did introduce yesterday a very broad package of reforms to try to deal with gun violence in this country. expanded access to mental health treatment, improvements in the background checks system, resources for schools to have more armed guards on site if they want them. and yes, a renewal of the old assault weapons ban that we had for ten years before it expired in 2004. since president obama introduced those measures all of the discussion in washington has been about the viability of what he is proposing, right? renewing the assault weapons ban, that's not viable, that'll never pass. that is the chorus from washington. the nra of course says that nothing will pass. old steve stockman says i don't care if anything passes, let's impeach him anyway, gun grab, gun grab.

but because of what is going on in washington right now, because that is the discussion, we are also -- we're not just getting the sort of predictable loudness from predictable washington loud voices. we are also getting something really useful. we're also getting polling. and when it is as dramatic as it is on the issue of guns, the polling speaks pretty loudly itself. did you see the results from the cbs/"new york times" poll on whether people support the idea of having universal background checks? this proposal, president obamas making this proposal to have background checks on guns but for everybody. no more loopholes. everybody has to go through a background check if you want to buy a gun. most people think that's already true in our country, but it turns out something like 40% of gun sales are done in a way where the people don't have to have a background check at all. well, the proportion of americans who support a universal background check like president obama wants is 92%. 92% of americans don't support anything. 92% of americans don't like sunny days. but 92% of americans support this. it's 93% of independents.

93% of democrats. even 89% of republicans. if you just ask households with a gun, 93% support universal background checks. how about if you live in a household where someone in the house is a member of the national rifle association? ah. well, still, hmm, 85%. wow. 85% of those people support universal background checks. 85%. and still, the nra as an organization is against it. in terms of assessing the political viability of this proposal, you know what? when 92% of america wants something, it doesn't really matter who's against it. i don't care if the nra is against it. if 92% of people want it, members of congress can read polls. it's probably going to happen. when something has that much support, the character of the opposition sometimes doesn't matter that much. but on some other things when you're trying to figure out what can pass and what can change, what has to stay the same, the character of the opposition really does matter.

sometimes the character of who is against something and why they are against it can actually make something more likely to change, more likely to pass. another one of the things that president obama has proposed this week is that we should have a director of atf. the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives. the atf is a government agency, but it does not have a director. it has not had a confirmed full-time director for the entire time president obama has been president. and even before that. why don't we have one? we do not have a director of that agency because out of its federal agents are jackbooted thugs days the nra has vigilantly kept that agency neutered and unable to fully do its job. the conspiracy-driven corner of the gun world's paranoia about federal agents has for years driven the nra to demonize that agency, to weaken that agency, and to keep it from doing its job. and members of congress have gone along with them on that. it was republican congressman james sensenbrenner from

wisconsin who with the renewal of the patriot act in 1996 snuck in the nra's language establishing that the head of the atf would henceforth be subject to senate confirmation, which it never had been before. since that happened, by design we have never had anybody running the atf. we've never had a permanent head of the agency. because the nra doesn't want anybody running the agency. because remember, jackbooted thugs. remember waco. that is why this federal law enforcement agency has fewer agents than it had when i was born, which is very nearly 40 years ago now. that is why its budget is minuscule, even though we've got 300 million guns in this country, and this is the federal agency responsible for regulating them and making sure that gun owners are following the rules. that's why this is subject -- why the atf is subject to random restrictions like not being allowed to inspect a firearms

dealer more than once a year. it's why nobody has run the agency since 2006. the nra is why there is not something running that agency. president obama says we should have somebody running that agency. and the character of the political history for why we do not have somebody running that agency should affect whether or not that can now be changed in washington. sometimes the character of the opposition defines why something ought to be the most politically viable thing in the world to get changed. chris hayes joins us next. to as and deep wrinkles than professional treatments. roc® max for maximum results. and deep wrinkles than professional treatments. [ female announcer ] some people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. and that their homeowners insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ] it doesn't. stop pretending. only flood insurance covers floods. ♪ visit floodsmart.gov/pretend to learn your risk.

ahead tonight, we've got a "rachel maddow show" special report that you will not see anywhere else. we have been working on this for a long time, and it starts with some very, very surprising news out of the heartland. that's coming up. hold on.

since congress hasn't confirmed a director of the bureau of ak tol, to be ol alcohol, tobacco and firearms in six years, they should confirm todd jones who will be -- who has been acting and i will be nominating for the post. [ applause ] >> if you want to know who a person is in a room who you do not recognize by sight, wait until somebody at a podium mentions their name and everybody else starts clapping. the guy not clapping is the guy whose name that is. that's how we all found out what todd jones looks like. president obama yesterday urging congress to confirm a new director of the atf, something it has not done in six years, naming todd jones as the man he would nominate to that position, and then the man who didn't clap when everybody else did, that was him. now we know. joining us now is the host of

msnbc's weekend morning show "up with chris hayes," mr. hayes, thank you for being here. >> oh, it's great to be here. >> does this mark the end of a neutered atf without a director in power to run that bureau? >> well, i think the confirmation fight's going to be interesting because i mean the question is, first of all, the real hardcore super right faction of the current republican party is operating chiefly out of the house. so the question i think right now, and this is a broader question about how the house and 123459 are going to relate to each other in the 113th congress, is which way the senate goes and whether senate republicans want to take that stand, right? if they think it's politically expedient to kind of wage a war of obstruction on this what is largely in some sense a symbolic issue. the guys running the agency, right? it does make a difference, anyone you talk to in a federal bureaucracy will tell you, it makes a difference having a senate-confirmed head of an agency as opposed to an acting in terms of the power they have, the latitude they have, the

awareness of the people within that agency of what they can do and how they can transform it. so it does matter, but it is from the perspective of a senate republican a pretty symbolic battle. so it's going to be very interesting to see how senate republicans are reading the current lay of the land politically -- >> yeah. >> -- to see whether they really put up a fight. >> and of course in terms of how symbolic it is versus what a practical impact it will have, he has another job. he's a u.s. attorney at home i think in minnesota, and he commutes in and out and tries to do both jobs sort of as full-time, part-time thing. so hopefully we'd get him full-time. do you think that having some -- having the atf not be this sort of neutered agency, if president obama could sort of fully empower it, would make a difference both in gun policy and in gun politics? would it matter? >> i think it will matter. i think there are so many layers right now to figuring out r way through the thicket of our gun problem from a policy standpoint. i don't want to sound -- i don't want to be a downer or cynical about all this, but there is a sense in which i think at the macro level the gun problem america has is a very big problem and it's a deep problem. it's kind of a deep cultural

problem about how many guns we have and how much we love guns and how present gun violence is in our lives. and then there's a bunch of marginal, small reforms you could make at the margins like, for instance, in the list that we all saw right before the president made his announcement, appointing a director of the atf, at which point a lot of journalists, and i will admit, myself included, went, huh, we don't have a head of the atf. this is the big radical thing we're going to do. and sometimes i think the obvious -- i guess the point i would say is the low-hanging fruit is low hanging and we should snatch it, right? >> yeah. >> there should be a director of atf and we should have comprehensive background checks like you noted. but getting from here to there and there being the u.s. having a gun violence rate that is similar to other industrialized countries, there's a lot more in between those 26 very relatively small incremental things and

here, which is where we want to end up. >> you start somewhere and you start i think by proving that policy can be changed. >> absolutely. a thousand percent. >> in washington. even though the gun lobby wants you to believe that that's impossible. that's why i think it's important to remember or at least to go back into the archives and figure out why there is this weird anomaly that we don't have a head of the atf. it is because of really radical anti-government, far right fringe politics influencing the nra to push for that for members of congress. so now the question is, well, we've been talking for four years now about how the republican party relates to the right-wing fringe, that it has this sort of uneasy relationship with. how is that going to manifest on guns? i don't know what the relationship is between the steve stockman of then and the steve stockman of today and his own party. >> and here's where i think the politics of it right now are fascinating. there's a lot of malyaability i think in the public opinion on this issue right now in the wake of newtown. and the nra has played a very strange card from that very weird lapierre presser that seemed intensely focused on joining up the most rabid members of his base to this ad they've cut with sasha and malia. i don't think the war on the atf

is a broadly resonant issue in american public life -- >> but they're trying to be broadly resonant. >> but they aren't trying to be broadly resonant. and the question, it gets back to the senate republican question, does the party, dot legislators go along with that? do they recognize -- when they were sitting around capitol hill, all of them, watching wayne lapierre up on their tv screens, did they recognize how terrible that looked toefrn? do they understand that? and doe think in the post-gerrymandered 13th congress with those districts that are going to be there for ten years, do they think it matters? do they think the voters in their district matter enough because they've kind of gotten themselves some nice sin koours, to respond to that? >> that's right. and in the senate there aren't those districts -- >> exactly. >> that's where the confirmation is going to be fascinating. you are totally right. that's so great. chris hayes is the host of "up with chris hayes," weekend mornings here on msnbc. thank you. i loved you even before you were right. sometimes you're wrong and i still love you. >> all the time. go back to sle.

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we are keeping an eye on a story tonight that at this point the bottom line is not at all clear but it is worrying. we have been reporting since yesterday of course on this hostage situation at a natural gas facility in algeria. at least three americans among more than 40 international civilian hostages held by an islamist militant group. it's a group that has links to al qaeda. they say the attack and the kidnapping was retaliation for algeria letting france use its airspace for the french attacks on islamic militants in the nation of mali, which is right

next door. well, today the algerian military on its own apparently refusing all offers of foreign help. the algerian military reportedly went in on their own, firing on the hostage site from attack helicopters. in what they say wa an attempt to rescue the hostages. the difficulty here is that we do not yet know the outcome of that attack. we know that in fact some of the hostages were freed and were in fact flown out of the region to britain tonight. we are told that some of the hostages were also killed. now, the number of casualties and who they are remains absolutely unclear at this point. we can't even get close to a credible number. so it does appear that this al qaeda-linked hostage situation in algeria has ended. but how badly it has ended we do

okay. we've got a special report tonight. about two years ago, in february 2011, we interviewed this doctor on the show. her name is dr. mila means. she grew up in wichita, kansas. she went to college at wichita state. she went to medical school at the university of kansas. she then became a family doctor in her home town. the friendly lady with the

bright red hair who gives vaccines to little kids and arthritis medication to the older folks. and her family practice at an office park in wichita. dr. means is not a particularly remarkable doctor in the way we usually think of remarkable doctors. she was not a standout in her field in any way. the reason we had her on this show, the reason we were talking to her in 2011, is she was planning on doing something quite amazing and quite newsworthy and quite brave. what she planned to do was to essentially take over the practice of this man, dr. george tiller. dr. tiller was also from kansas. he was born in wichita. he was the son of a family doctor. he went to medical school in kansas. he joined the navy and became a flight surgeon. george tiller really wanted to become a dermatologist. but just as he was starting his residency, his parents were killed. and he ended up, unexpectedly, having to take over his father's family practice back home in his home town. turns out his father had been quietly offering abortions in wichita starting in the 1940s. and when he took over his father's practice, the younger dr. tiller realized that women still needed that service in wichita.

by then it was the mid 1970s. because he made that choice to continue his father's practice, dr. george tiller became the target of the violent radical fringe of the anti-abortion movement. his clinic was bombed in 1986. the next day he moved his practice to a secret location and he kept going. five years later, in the summer of 1991, protesters began blockading his clinic. they chained themselves to the fence outside his clinic, blocking access for patients and for staff. then in 1993 a woman who had been part of those protests tried to kill dr. tiller. she walked up to him in his car in the clinic parking lot and she shot him. she opened fire. she ended up hitting him in both of his arms. dr. tiller not only survived, he returned to work the next day. around that same time it is believed that some extreme anti-abortion activists had started circulating this wanted poster for dr. tiller, making clear that he was a marked man. and then in 2009 an anti-abortion activist walked into dr. tiller's wichita church, his church, the only place where dr. tiller showed up at the same time every week, a place they knew he could be found at that time, and scott roder shot george tiller dead.

and when they killed george tiller in that church in 2009, that ended abortion in wichita. actually, in that whole part of kansas. dr. tiller's clintonic was closed into after his murder. it has been vacant in wichita ever since. when we interviewed dr. mila means in 2011, she was planning on picking up where dr. tiller left off. she had begun the extra training she needed to become an abortion provider so she could offer that service in addition to her family practice. she was going to re-establish access to abortion in wichita despite the horrific litany of what had ended it there before. that was her plan. but it did not happen. dr. means was open about what she wanted to do. she soon found herself sued by her landlord for "creating a clear nuisance" after protesters

showed up at her family practice. protesters also showed up at her house. they sent around a poster describing her as an unspeakable, horrific murderer who earns blood money. they gave out her office address and told their followers "don't ignore her. do provoke her." dr. means received this letter, telling her "you will be checking under your car every under it." ultimately, dr. means just hit too many obstacles, too much opposition. she had to set aside her plan. next tuesday's the 40th anniversary of the supreme court decision that established that american women have a constitutional right to access abortion services if they want them. a state cannot make abortion illegal. and on the 40th anniversary of roe versus wade the national story of its impact 40 years on is not mostly a story about litigation. it's not really a story about the supreme court anymore. it turns out that the story is mostly now about how something in our country can be both legal

and essentially unprotected. so that while on paper you have a certain right, the people who would afford you access to that right are hounded and harassed and threatened and attacked and killed to the point where your right exists really only on paper and it ceases to exist in the actual world in your actual life when you need it and when the constitution is supposed to guarantee it for you. but the other story which we are able to bring you tonight is how actually some americans are finding a way. it does not work every time, and the resistance is almost unimaginable, and in some cases it is unimaginably violent. after all, it was murdering the doctor that in 2009 ended access to abortion in the heart of kansas. but now, and this is our story tonight, that access is coming back. that exact office is in fact reopening. it's not dr. means. it's happening by other means. against the odds. against the opposition that made

it impossible for others but not impossible for everyone. that access is being reopened in kansas by a group of people who are not naive, who know exactly what they are up against. but it turns out that is part of why they are doing it. and they are getting it done. and that is our story. [ lane ] are you growing old

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okay. welcome back. this is julie burkhart. she worked for dr. george tiller before he was shot and killed in may 2009. and what you are looking at here

is footage of dr. tiller's former clinic. this is julie burkhart showing us around. it's rebecca dryden, "rachel maddow show" producer with julie burkhart right there. the clinic closed down after dr. tiller's murder more than three years ago. it has been shuttered ever since. but after dr. tiller's murder, after the shutdown jewel yeh burkhart started a foundation and she bought dr. tiller's former clinic. and right now she is in the process of reopening it. the plan is to open a full-service women's health center with everything from checkups and cancer screenings to abortion and everything in between. to get it done julie burkhart has assembled a group of allies, some of them local and some of them experts in their field from all around the country to help make this seemingly impossible thing happen. this week dr. tiller's clinic was full of contractors working on remodeling the building, and it was full of people who were working to reopen the clinic by all the other menz they know how to as well. ye oldie "rachel maddow show" went on the road this week to

see what is going on at this clinic in kansas. so you will see tonight and hear tonight from several people involved in this project. i want to mention one note, though. there is one person who you will hear from tonight but you will not see. it's the doctor who signed on to provide abortions at the new clinic. she has asked us to protect her identity for her own safety. she's not from wichita. she will not be living in wichita. she will fly in from out of state twice a month to provide abortions at the new clinic. we have obscured her face and disguised her voice at her request for safety reasons. but you will hear from her tonight. the people involved in trying to reopen this clinic, who you are about to meet, what we found is that they know what they are doing. they are fully aware of what they are up against. and most importantly, they know what the stakes are. their plan to open this clinic back up will bring abortion access back to the heart of kansas. 3 1/2 years after dr. tiller's murder ended that access. and they are doing it at the very place where dr. tiller provided that access for

decades. watch. >> at first when we were discussing this, you know, with the board and supporters we weren't entirely sure that we wanted to come back into this facility. so there was a long debate about that. and we looked at a lot of other facilities. but we really came to the realization that, you know, for a medical facility to provide the type of health care that we want to provide this is perfect. >> i think that, you know, being back in the clinic, you know, you can feel the positive, good spirit of dr. tiller. i think we can all kind of feel that. those of us who were lucky enough to meet him and know him. >> it's a wonderful thing to be in this building. this is dr. tiller's building. and when trust women bought the building, it was just a joyful thing to be able to maintain this site. and so there's optimism everywhere walking around here. it's -- this is a group that's absolutely committed. and they're going to get it open, and it's going to be wonderful.

>> i think it's, you know, incredibly symbolic of what we're doing. and the, you know, women's rights movement. i mean, from a personal perspective, you know, someone who worked here, you know, this clinic just really embodied love and compassion and justice and, you know, good health care for women. and so that's what i think about, is just what we're going to be able to bring back to the women of wichita. >> do you see personal risks for yourself involved in just being an abortion provider? >> i would like to say no. i have some amount of concern for my safety. however, i feel that those concerns cannot -- that i can't allow those concerns to affect the behavior that i do and to affect my determination to provide mainstream health care services to women who need them.

>> i think the biggest challenge is trying to juggle all the obstacles at one time. it's the anti-abortion groups. it's some of the legislative work that is really trying to stop abortion in this state. there are some people who want kansas to be abortion-free. and they're in the legislature. so that's a big deal. >> this has been a hotbed of activity, and we're here to do everything we can and make sure that the pro-choice community of kansas and wichita has a peaceful transition as this clinic reopens. >> i have the flyer here from -- that was distributed in your neighborhood. and it calls you an abortion homicide promoter. and it lists your home address, and it asks people to go to your home and talk to you. >> mm-hmm. >> is this scary to you? to have this distributed and to have your home address and it has your picture.

>> well, it's something that i take very seriously. and you know, something that we, you know, communicate with -- regularly -- we communicate regularly with law enforcement on this issue and any other issue that might arise. but it does give one pause because, you know, these are folks who now know my home address. you know, they can attempt to monitor my actions. and they can do that to any other employee here at the clinic. so it's something that we take very seriously. but it will not deter us. >> i feel that if those tactics are successful in dissuading physicians from providing a legal protected medical service to their patients then it allows them to win that battle of depriving those women of access to care that the women themselves have decided they

need. >> i think the community has long awaited the reopening of this clinic and is going to celebrate its reopening. i think that we have -- this is a very bright spot of hope, having this clinic reopen. and it's going to be a challenge. there's no question. but it's a hopeful challenge, and it will be a comprehensive reproductive health care facility that, you know, whether you're here for a pap smear, whether you're here for an abortion, whether a woman is here for prenatal care or a pregnancy test, they can come here and know they're going to get excellent care, unbiased care, and that's what this city's been waiting for again for a long time. >> we're joined now on set by our own rebecca dryden, who is just back off the plane from this reporting trip.

welcome back, rebecca. >> thanks. >> obviously talking to all these people involved in trying to reopen this clinic, they are very confident they're going to be able to do it. from your assessment being there and knowing what you know about why that clinic is not open right now, do you think it's a done deal this clinic's going to be able to reopen? >> i would say it's not quite to that level yet. i think, again, absolutely they are -- julie burkhart, everyone she's working with, they are incredibly confident they are opening and they are opening soon. but they do still have obstacles. there's one anti-abortion group locally in town that is working on petitions to try to rezone the area where the clinic is so that you would no longer be able to provide medical care, so you couldn't operate a medical facility in that area where the clinic already exists. obviously, this is an area where medical facilities, this very medical facility has been. >> for many years.

>> for many years. >> are there any other medical facilities in that area that they'd be inadvertently shutting down too? >> well, it's an interesting question. there is a sort of medical facility right next to dr. tiller's old clinic, which it's a crisis pregnancy center. it's one of the places they try to talk you out of zblsh an abortion lecture place. >> exactly. but they do sonograms and they call themselves a clinic. and that's been there also for many years. >> what about opposition from the state? we saw one of the women who you talked to there mention that the state is part of the issue, i mean, it doesn't get much more conservative or much more anti-abortion than kansas

governor sam brownback and that very republican legislature there. are they also facing opposition from the state? >> absolutely. and they've since -- since dr. tiller's murder in 2009 there have been dozens of new restrictions and a handful of bills that have been passed through the legislature and signed into law by governor brownback. they have a new ultrasound bill. they have a new 20-week ban. they have a new track law regulations, targeted regulations at abortion clinics, and that law specifically is -- it's not being enforced right now. there's an injunction while the old -- the other clinics that exist in the state are suing to try to get it thrown out altogether. but not knowing what's together. julie b irkhardt is planning to have it ren innovated. >> so they are planning. >> absolutely. they will meet those regulations whether or not they have to. >> i know these women feel connected to him and what he did but i know you also visited the abortion provider in each of the four states where there was only four left. does the tiller example, the murder of that document tor resonate with other states? >> absolutely. we didn't ask any questions about it. most often they would bring it up after the camera was done rolling but almost everyone we spoke to brought up dr. tiller and not cognizant of each other. some of them talked about what he meant for abortion providers and most of ten he came up in

terms of talking about security and there is a sense of vol vulnerab vulnerability. it is present in their lives. >> this is what is supposed to be protected by the law but supposed to be illegal and violent bathe. this is a leading and burning edge. and we'll have part two of the special report tomorrow. >> thank you. >> all right on tuesday night, at the end of a segment that i did about rb ares trying to gain gain, i did something out of character and yelled at the camera hey belt way wake up.

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redmap is a republican party program from the last few years and something that the party is very proud of. in this memo the party explains that their redmap program was the only reason that republicans did not lose everything in the last election. they say that it is only because of redmap is republicans hold the house right now.

they are excited to admit even though republicans hold the house even though americans voted for more democrats in the house. this is from a republican strategy document. suggesting that 2012 could have had a part in 2008 to democrats. republicans did not lose control of the house despite the way that america voted. republican ares kept a 33 seat majority in the house. it was red map and the republican party breaks down how it worked to do that state by state. pennsylvanians cast 83,000 more votes for candidates than their republican opponents but elects a 13-5 majority to rpt them in dc. still, elected a 9:00 to 5:00 republican delegations to congress. in ohio they say ohio allowed a 12-4 majority to return to representatives despite voters casting 52%. they brag about the same thing happens in wisconsin as well. we reported on this phenomenon and on the republican party bragging on it on tuesday night. that it is all thanks to red map to that coordinated effort to change the maps on these states so that republicans win seats no matter who the people in that state vote for. even though democrats got more votes.

pennsylvanians cast 83,000 more votes for candidates than their republican opponents but elects a 13-5 majority to rpt them in dc. still, elected a 9:00 to 5:00 republican delegations to congress. in ohio they say ohio allowed a 12-4 majority to return to representatives despite voters casting 52%. they brag about the same thing happens in wisconsin as well. we reported on this phenomenon and on the republican party bragging on it on tuesday night. that it is all thanks to red map to that coordinated effort to

change the maps on these states so that republicans win seats no matter who the people in that state vote for. even though democrats got more votes. the next piece of this what happens after red map is that the republicans in these states are quietly trying to change the rules in these states so that these same maps, same house district same maps should be used to elect the president now as well. republicans in these states want votes to not be statewide anymore. they want them allocated based on the red maps maps. we reported on redmap and how it relates to this scheme as well. i min issued d h shed up that segment by shouting by saying hey beltway wake up.

this is not the kind of change that should happen quietly until we don't notice until it is all over. and today i'm happy to report, it is starting to get some pick up. so far it is in the lefty feed thea. but the pick up is starting both think progress and talking points memo have are picked up the story today. 7 pennsylvania republicans have introduced location to enact the redmap scheme for the election in their state in time for 2016. the state's republican governor and majority leader in the senate have said that they support that idea or pennsylvania.